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4 vaccines that are linked to a lower risk of dementia

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Thursday, September 25, 2025

Vaccines don’t just protect us from infectious diseases or lessen their effects. Some are also associated with a reduced risk for dementia, research shows.“They’ll protect against these really potentially severe infections, especially in older adults, and preventing that alone is huge,” said Avram Bukhbinder, a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who has conducted research on vaccines and dementia risk.“There seems to also be some kind of added benefit and ultimately it just adds a more compelling reason” to get routine vaccines, he said.Studies have found that many vaccines may be associated with a reduced risk of dementia — here are four of the most common ones with the strongest links.The flu shotAn estimated 47 million to 82 million people in the United States — about 13 to 24 percent of all people — caught influenza, or the flu, during the 2024-2025 season with 27,000 to 130,000 Americans dying as a result, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Flu season generally runs from October to May in North America.)Influenza and pneumonia — a potential complication of flu — are associated with five neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia and Parkinson’s disease, according to a 2023 study analyzing biobank data from over 400,000 people.“I don’t know how many times in the adult world we hear, ‘My loved one got flu, was in the hospital for a week or two, and it just was never the same.’ Like quickly went downhill from there,” Bukhbinder said.Many studies have found that flu vaccination is associated with a lower risk of dementia years later.In a 2022 study, Bukhbinder and his colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston examined a large health database of over 1.8 million adults ages 65 and over. They found that those who received at least one flu vaccine were 40 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s — the most common form of dementia — during the next four years.Getting the flu vaccine was also associated with a 17 percent reduction in dementia risk in a 2024 study of over 70,000 participants.The CDC recommends all people over 6 months old get annual flu shots, typically in September or October.Fewer than half of Americans typically get their flu vaccine each season.The shingles vaccineThe shingles vaccine has the strongest evidence for reducing the risk of dementia with multiple large-scale studies in the past two years corroborating the results of older studies.In one 2025 study, researchers tracked more than 280,000 adults in Wales and found that the shingles vaccine was linked with reducing dementia risk by 20 percent over a seven-year period.“There may be potential additional benefits beyond the protection that the vaccine provides for a particular condition,” said Pascal Geldsetzer, an assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. “So, that’s only an additional reason to get vaccinated.”A subsequent study examining over 100,000 patients in Australia similarly found that getting vaccinated for shingles was associated with reduced dementia risk.If you are eligible, you should probably get a shingles vaccine regardless of its chances of reducing your dementia risk. The vaccine reduces the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, which causes chicken pox in childhood and remains dormant in nerve cells afterward. When reactivated in adulthood, the virus manifests as shingles, which is characterized by a burning, painful rash and can sometimes cause lifelong chronic pain conditions or serious complications in a subset of people who get it.The CDC recommends two doses of a shingles vaccine for adults 50 and older or those 19 and older with a weakened immune system; 36 percent of eligible Americans got vaccinated in 2022.The RSV vaccineRespiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common respiratory virus that can cause mild, cold-like symptoms in most people, but may cause severe infections in children as well as adults ages 65 and older. (The virus is the leading cause of hospitalization among American infants and causes an estimated 10o to 300 deaths in children under 5, and 6,000 to 10,000 deaths in people 65 or older, every year in the U.S.)A recent study tracking over 430,000 people found that the RSV vaccine (as well as the shingles vaccine) was associated with a reduced risk of dementia over 18 months compared with those who received the flu vaccine.The CDC recommends all adults ages 75 and older, as well as adults older than 50 at higher risk of RSV, get the vaccine.The Tdap vaccineSeveral studies have reported that the vaccine against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (or whooping cough), or Tdap, is associated with a reduced risk of dementia.One 2021 study with over 200,000 patients reported that older adults who received both the shingles and Tdap vaccines had further reduced risk of dementia compared with those who only received one of the vaccines.The CDC recommends routine Tdap vaccination for all adolescents and a booster for adults every 10 years. In 2022, about 30 percent of adults ages 19-64 who could be assessed had received a Tdap vaccine.How vaccines may reduce dementia riskResearch has shown that severe infections, including flu, herpes and respiratory tract infections, are linked to accelerated brain atrophy and increased risk of dementia years down the line.“We think it’s the uncontrolled kind of systemic inflammation that’s probably contributing to that,” Bukhbinder said. “And it’s very likely that they had the underlying Alzheimer’s or other dementia pathology already, but the inflammation is what pushed them over the edge.”Geldsetzer said that the varicella-zoster virus, which causes shingles, has the most clear biological links because it hibernates in our nervous system and can more directly affect the brain. (Getting a chicken pox vaccine in childhood can prevent this virus from taking hold in the first place.)Though different vaccines are linked to reduced dementia risk, there are inherent limitations to how the research was conducted. The link is associational, not causal, because the people who get vaccines may be different from those who don’t.For example, it could be that “those who are on average more health-motivated, have better health behaviors, are the ones who decide to get vaccinated,” Geldsetzer said. Even though researchers try to account for these confounding variables, it is not possible to fully filter out differences in health behaviors associated with dementia risk.But recent studies hint at a stronger link between the shingles vaccine and dementia-risk reduction. This research takes advantage of “natural experiments” because of arbitrary dates that the governments of Wales and Australia set for shingles vaccine eligibility; those born immediately before and after the eligibility date are probably not different and can be more directly compared. And when they are, those who got the shingles vaccines had lower risk of dementia, said Geldsetzer, who was an author on the Wales and Australia studies and is raising money to fund a randomized controlled trial.There are two broad biological hypotheses for how vaccines are linked to reduced dementia risk. Vaccines could reduce the risk of getting sick and infection severity, which have been linked to increased dementia risk.“I feel confident that that’s part of the story, but it’s not the whole story,” Bukhbinder said.Another, not mutually exclusive possibility is that the vaccine itself may activate the immune system in a beneficial way. Vaccination “may be honing or refining the immune system’s response,” Bukhbinder said.There’s “good evidence that what happens outside of the brain … seems to actually affect the inside pretty robustly,” Bukhbinder said.How to keep up-to-date on vaccines and reduce dementia riskVaccinations, like all medical treatments, can have some risks and side effects, so it is important to speak with your doctor about your particular health needs.However, “I would say by and far the benefits of getting these vaccinations almost incomparably outweigh the risks,” Bukhbinder said.In addition, 45 percent of dementia cases could be delayed or prevented with lifestyle and environmental changes, according to the 2024 Lancet Commission report on dementia.Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column.

Some vaccine-preventable diseases are linked to accelerated brain atrophy and increased dementia risk years down the line.

Vaccines don’t just protect us from infectious diseases or lessen their effects. Some are also associated with a reduced risk for dementia, research shows.

“They’ll protect against these really potentially severe infections, especially in older adults, and preventing that alone is huge,” said Avram Bukhbinder, a resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who has conducted research on vaccines and dementia risk.

“There seems to also be some kind of added benefit and ultimately it just adds a more compelling reason” to get routine vaccines, he said.

Studies have found that many vaccines may be associated with a reduced risk of dementia — here are four of the most common ones with the strongest links.

The flu shot

An estimated 47 million to 82 million people in the United States — about 13 to 24 percent of all people — caught influenza, or the flu, during the 2024-2025 season with 27,000 to 130,000 Americans dying as a result, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Flu season generally runs from October to May in North America.)

Influenza and pneumonia — a potential complication of flu — are associated with five neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia and Parkinson’s disease, according to a 2023 study analyzing biobank data from over 400,000 people.

“I don’t know how many times in the adult world we hear, ‘My loved one got flu, was in the hospital for a week or two, and it just was never the same.’ Like quickly went downhill from there,” Bukhbinder said.

Many studies have found that flu vaccination is associated with a lower risk of dementia years later.

In a 2022 study, Bukhbinder and his colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston examined a large health database of over 1.8 million adults ages 65 and over. They found that those who received at least one flu vaccine were 40 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s — the most common form of dementia — during the next four years.

Getting the flu vaccine was also associated with a 17 percent reduction in dementia risk in a 2024 study of over 70,000 participants.

The CDC recommends all people over 6 months old get annual flu shots, typically in September or October.

Fewer than half of Americans typically get their flu vaccine each season.

The shingles vaccine

The shingles vaccine has the strongest evidence for reducing the risk of dementia with multiple large-scale studies in the past two years corroborating the results of older studies.

In one 2025 study, researchers tracked more than 280,000 adults in Wales and found that the shingles vaccine was linked with reducing dementia risk by 20 percent over a seven-year period.

“There may be potential additional benefits beyond the protection that the vaccine provides for a particular condition,” said Pascal Geldsetzer, an assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the senior author of the study. “So, that’s only an additional reason to get vaccinated.”

A subsequent study examining over 100,000 patients in Australia similarly found that getting vaccinated for shingles was associated with reduced dementia risk.

If you are eligible, you should probably get a shingles vaccine regardless of its chances of reducing your dementia risk. The vaccine reduces the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, which causes chicken pox in childhood and remains dormant in nerve cells afterward. When reactivated in adulthood, the virus manifests as shingles, which is characterized by a burning, painful rash and can sometimes cause lifelong chronic pain conditions or serious complications in a subset of people who get it.

The CDC recommends two doses of a shingles vaccine for adults 50 and older or those 19 and older with a weakened immune system; 36 percent of eligible Americans got vaccinated in 2022.

The RSV vaccine

Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common respiratory virus that can cause mild, cold-like symptoms in most people, but may cause severe infections in children as well as adults ages 65 and older. (The virus is the leading cause of hospitalization among American infants and causes an estimated 10o to 300 deaths in children under 5, and 6,000 to 10,000 deaths in people 65 or older, every year in the U.S.)

A recent study tracking over 430,000 people found that the RSV vaccine (as well as the shingles vaccine) was associated with a reduced risk of dementia over 18 months compared with those who received the flu vaccine.

The CDC recommends all adults ages 75 and older, as well as adults older than 50 at higher risk of RSV, get the vaccine.

The Tdap vaccine

Several studies have reported that the vaccine against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (or whooping cough), or Tdap, is associated with a reduced risk of dementia.

One 2021 study with over 200,000 patients reported that older adults who received both the shingles and Tdap vaccines had further reduced risk of dementia compared with those who only received one of the vaccines.

The CDC recommends routine Tdap vaccination for all adolescents and a booster for adults every 10 years. In 2022, about 30 percent of adults ages 19-64 who could be assessed had received a Tdap vaccine.

How vaccines may reduce dementia risk

Research has shown that severe infections, including flu, herpes and respiratory tract infections, are linked to accelerated brain atrophy and increased risk of dementia years down the line.

“We think it’s the uncontrolled kind of systemic inflammation that’s probably contributing to that,” Bukhbinder said. “And it’s very likely that they had the underlying Alzheimer’s or other dementia pathology already, but the inflammation is what pushed them over the edge.”

Geldsetzer said that the varicella-zoster virus, which causes shingles, has the most clear biological links because it hibernates in our nervous system and can more directly affect the brain. (Getting a chicken pox vaccine in childhood can prevent this virus from taking hold in the first place.)

Though different vaccines are linked to reduced dementia risk, there are inherent limitations to how the research was conducted. The link is associational, not causal, because the people who get vaccines may be different from those who don’t.

For example, it could be that “those who are on average more health-motivated, have better health behaviors, are the ones who decide to get vaccinated,” Geldsetzer said. Even though researchers try to account for these confounding variables, it is not possible to fully filter out differences in health behaviors associated with dementia risk.

But recent studies hint at a stronger link between the shingles vaccine and dementia-risk reduction. This research takes advantage of “natural experiments” because of arbitrary dates that the governments of Wales and Australia set for shingles vaccine eligibility; those born immediately before and after the eligibility date are probably not different and can be more directly compared. And when they are, those who got the shingles vaccines had lower risk of dementia, said Geldsetzer, who was an author on the Wales and Australia studies and is raising money to fund a randomized controlled trial.

There are two broad biological hypotheses for how vaccines are linked to reduced dementia risk. Vaccines could reduce the risk of getting sick and infection severity, which have been linked to increased dementia risk.

“I feel confident that that’s part of the story, but it’s not the whole story,” Bukhbinder said.

Another, not mutually exclusive possibility is that the vaccine itself may activate the immune system in a beneficial way. Vaccination “may be honing or refining the immune system’s response,” Bukhbinder said.

There’s “good evidence that what happens outside of the brain … seems to actually affect the inside pretty robustly,” Bukhbinder said.

How to keep up-to-date on vaccines and reduce dementia risk

Vaccinations, like all medical treatments, can have some risks and side effects, so it is important to speak with your doctor about your particular health needs.

However, “I would say by and far the benefits of getting these vaccinations almost incomparably outweigh the risks,” Bukhbinder said.

In addition, 45 percent of dementia cases could be delayed or prevented with lifestyle and environmental changes, according to the 2024 Lancet Commission report on dementia.

Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Over the weekend, Covid cautious individuals shared clips on social media of Jon Stewart punching down on people who are masking, who are presumably doing so to protect themselves from Covid, the flu, and other infectious diseases that are spreading across the United States. On the December 11 episode of the podcast The Weekly Show […]

Over the weekend, Covid cautious individuals shared clips on social media of Jon Stewart punching down on people who are masking, who are presumably doing so to protect themselves from Covid, the flu, and other infectious diseases that are spreading across the United States. On the December 11 episode of the podcast The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, guest Tim Miller of The Bulwark said there have to be at least two people at fellow guest Jon Favreau’s workplace wearing masks because it’s a progressive organization. Stewart responded, “There’s always two, and you always say, ‘Oh, are you sick?’ And they go, ‘Uh, I don’t want to talk about it.'” Disappointed to see Jon Stewart & co joke about masking in public. I do it for my medically fragile daughter (Batten Disease). People not masking properly led to her getting pneumonia, which led to her being on life support, which led to me getting price quotes on her cremation just in case.[image or embed]— Philip Palermo (@palermo.bsky.social) December 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM First of all, asking people why they are masking is invasive behavior. No one randomly owes you information about their health, their loved one’s health, or, understandably, just wanting to avoid Covid, which is the only way to prevent Long Covid. As I’ve also previously reported, disabled people in New York’s Nassau County have reported being harassed after the county passed a mask ban. Cancer patients have also told their stories of being questioned about why they’re masking. Even before the start of the Covid pandemic, populations including cancer patients and organ transplant recipients have been encouraged to mask by healthcare professionals. “Sad that Jon Stewart and friends have become just more white liberals who enjoy punching down at marginalized people who are just doing our best to survive,” Karistina Lafae, a disabled author and essayist, told me. “Those of us who have Long COVID, who have watched family and friends die of COVID, we are being mocked for taking common-sense precautions against illness and further disability.” Research also shows that Long Covid is very much a working-class problem. A study looking at people in Spain found that workers who had close contact with colleagues at their job, did not mask, and took public transit to and from work are more likely to have Long Covid, thus also highlighting Covid as an occupational problem. The United States Census Bureau also reported in 2023 that Black and Latino adults were more likely to report experiencing Long Covid symptoms than white people. Some people have also pointed out the hypocrisy of his work supporting 9/11 first responders and how he is talking about masking now. Epidemiologist Gabrielle A. Perry posted on BlueSky that Stewart has “some absolute fucking NERVE to be making fun of Long COVID survivors and people still masking” when “he’s seen UP CLOSE the government deny healthcare and resources for 9/11 survivors who breathed in toxic air and are suffering decades later.” Jon Stewart has some absolute fucking NERVE to be making fun of Long COVID survivors and people still masking on his piece of shit podcast when he’s seen UP CLOSE the government deny healthcare and resources for 9/11 survivors who breathed in toxic air and are suffering decades later. What a psycho— Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH (@geauxgabrielle.bsky.social) December 27, 2025 at 5:29 AM Justine Barron worked a few blocks from the World Trade Center in 2001. “On top of exposure that day, I was exposed for a year and developed extremely severe breathing and skin issues, as well as immune dysfunction,” Barron told me. Barron acquired Long Covid in 2020, and her doctors believe that her 9/11 related conditions made her more susceptible to developing Long Covid. Barron is part of a 25-year World Trade Center Health Commission study, including hundreds of thousands of participants. “More recently, there have been questions related to Covid and Long Covid indicating that the commission is also aware of this connection,” Barron said. “My point is that you can’t be supportive of the 9/11 responders without also being supportive of Long Covid. Both environmental harms cause similar issues in people, and there are many of us that are double victims.”

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Plant ‘tredges’ to boost England’s tree cover, gardeners urged

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Crayfish, weevils and fungi are being released into the environment in order to tackle invasive species across Britain.Scientists working for the government have been breeding species in labs to set them loose into the wild to take on Japanese knotweed, signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, and other species that choke out native plants and wildlife.They are doing this, in part, to meet tough targets set by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in its recently announced environmental improvement plan. Ministers have directed the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha) to reduce the establishment of invasive species by 50% by 2030.Olaf Booy, deputy chief non-native species officer at Apha, said: “The science around biological control is always developing. 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At the moment, keepers of raccoons and raccoon dogs do not have to register with the government, though breeding and selling them is banned.Social media trends depicting raccoons as cuddly and desirable pets could be a concern, he said: “You do see things like raccoons and raccoon dogs popping up on social media and stuff. Particularly raccoons, they’re kind of cute and cuddly, and you could imagine that a TikTok trend might encourage people to think about getting a species like that. Obviously years ago we had the interest in terrapins from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”He added: “If you have a raccoon, you really need to know how to keep it securely to avoid it escaping. You don’t really want any predators of that sort of size establishing and spreading in the country, because it will have knock-on impacts for biodiversity. But they are also potentially vectors of disease as well.”The biosecurity minister and Labour peer Sue Hayman said: “With a changing climate we are constantly assessing for new risks and threats, including from invasive plants and animals, as well as managing the impacts of species already in this country. Invasive non-native species cost Britain’s economy nearly £2bn a year, and our environmental improvement plan sets out plans to reduce their establishment to protect native wildlife and farmers’ livelihoods.”

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Environmental groups and local campaigners in the Basque Country have welcomed the scrapping of a controversial project that would have seen an outpost of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum built on a Unesco biosphere reserve that is a vital habitat for local wildlife and migrating birds.The scheme’s backers, who include the Guggenheim Foundation, the Basque government and local and regional authorities, had claimed the new museum’s twin sites – one in the Basque town of Guernica and one in the nearby Urdaibai reserve – would help revitalise the area, attract investment and create jobs.But opponents said the scheme was being pushed through without proper consultation and would wreck Urdaibai, a 22,068-hectare site that was declared a biosphere reserve by Unesco in 1984.In a statement earlier this week, the foundation announced that the project had been abandoned “in light of the territorial, urban planning and environmental constraints and limitations”.It added: “New alternatives will be explored in order to face the challenge of elaborating a proposal that responds to the museum’s objective of growing in order to remain a leading cultural institution internationally and a driving force in the Basque Country’s cultural, economic and social scene.”The Bilbao Museum, which opened in 1997 despite considerable opposition, is credited with helping to reverse the city’s post-industrial decline and put it on the tourist map. But local people and ecologists argued that Urdaibai’s cliffs and estuarine salt marshes were hardly comparable with the polluted, urban site on which the Guggenheim was built.Campaign groups and environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace, WWF, Ecologists in Action, Friends of the Earth and SEO/BirdLife, had all called for the project to be scrapped. News of the foundation’s decision was received enthusiastically.Guggenheim Urdaibai Stop platform said in a statement: “The authorities told us unanimously that they were going to build this museum ‘no matter what’.“They didn’t care about the opinion of society; they didn’t care about the debate generated among citizens. Now, however, we are here celebrating the decision that these same leaders and institutions have had to make, unable to ignore a reality revealed by science, the law, and society.”SEO/BirdLife said “citizen mobilisation” had been key to saving “this threatened natural heritage”, while Greenpeace Spain said: “Social mobilisation works and, together with countless local groups, we have managed to stop the extension of the Guggenheim Museum that threatened to destroy this unique natural space. Urdaibai is already a monument and it will continue to be one.”

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Trump DEI crackdown expands to national park gift shops

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be...

The Trump administration’s efforts to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government is hitting gift shops at national parks. In a memo last month, acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron called for a review of the items available for purchase in park gift shops. The memo says that items should be reviewed for compliance with an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to cease activities related to DEI, accessibility or “environmental justice.” Like the order before it, the memo does not appear to define DEI.  Asked whether this means that any product related to people who are minorities would be impacted, a spokesperson for the Interior Department replied, “As you saw the memo, then you know that is not what it says.” Instead, said the spokesperson, Burgum’s order “directs federal agencies to ensure that government-affiliated retail spaces remain neutral and do not promote specific viewpoints.” “To comply with this order, the National Park Service is conducting a review of retail items to ensure our gift shops remain neutral spaces that serve all visitors,” added the spokesperson, who did not sign their name in the response. “The goal is to keep National Parks focused on their core mission: preserving natural and cultural resources for the benefit of all Americans.” The review’s deadline is next Friday. The memo does not appear to lay out specific criteria for the review. The memo was made public this week by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy organization. “Banning history books from park stores and cracking down on park T-shirts and keychains is not what national park visitors want from their Park Service,” said Alan Spears, the group’s senior director for cultural resources, in a written statement.  “The National Parks Conservation Association opposes this latest move from the administration because we, like the majority of Americans, support telling the full American story at our parks. That means acknowledging hard truths about slavery, climate change, and other topics that challenge us as a nation,” he added. The memo comes as part of a broader Trump administration push to reshape the portrayal of history at national parks and beyond. Earlier this year, the administration directed National Park Service units to review all public-facing content for messaging that disparages Americans or that “emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur” of natural features. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Government
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